It is Finally August

August is my favorite month of the year. There are just so many celebrations and things going on around town, my birthday falls in this month, it's summer, so the weather tends to be hot, etc. Overall, I have very little to complain about at this time of the year.

We attended the final show for the Celebration of Light and while I got a few photos, I forgot to bring a tripod so they all turned out a little shaky. Still, a couple were blog-worthy and I've posted them here. I particularly like the one of the girl standing on the back of a bike while wearing a traditional kimono. She was one of many people we saw dressed like that this year.

For the past week or so my cell phone has not been working. I took it in and had someone look at it and they proclaimed it dead, so I had been on the hunt for a replacement phone. I'm too cheap to spend the money on an iphone so I have been looking for a basic cell that will do the job. After all, I already have an ipod touch and a camera. Later in the week, as I was taking out the memory card I noticed a screw was loose. I tightened it and voila, my cell started to work again. This is good because I'm with Fido, the cell phone company with a few perks and even fewer phones to choose from (most of which suck). Hopefully I can wait until later this month when they release some newer phones that I might be interested in. Failing that, I guess I will be looking at other alternatives.

Biking across the Burrard Bridge has become habitual now, it's just part of how I get to work. I think I prefer riding along the seawall (and not taking any bridges) for the scenery, but the bridge is not a bad alternative. I don't participate in Critical Mass, so I guess this is the little bit of cycling activism that I do. No, I have still not purchased a bike either, although I figure I should probably go in and get a proper fitting, especially if I decide to pick up a classic Italian road bike off Craigslist instead of buying new. Of course, there is also the option of taking track lessons at the Burnaby Velodrome, something I've always wanted to do.

The other thing I have been doing when I can is to play a few video games. Yes, I said it. I'm a gamer. It's pride week, remember? If people can be proud to be gay, I can be proud to be a gamer. I have still been playing a lot of Left 4 Dead but realize that there are a few really good games that came and went that I missed. Games like Far Cry 2 or Dead Space. The reason I was wanting to try Far Cry 2 was mostly because of the setting. Set in a make believe African country you are some miserable mercenary who has a bad case of malaria and a penchant for setting fire to things. Apparently the way fire is modeled is quite realistic. For Dead Space, it's a creepy alien shooter set in a defunct space ship. The hook here is that it is supposed to be a thriller, which my wife will likely hate since she already gets creeped out with the zombie groans from Left 4 Dead - so much so that I had to switch to headphones.

Ah yes headphones. While my headphones work great, one thing I am missing is a working microphone. It might be time to get one of those headphone/microphone combo units, and then bring my old headphones back to the office.

The best part about older video games is that the prices drop after a while. Also, I've been using Steam, which is basically iTunes for video games. It's nice because getting games through that means no more packaging to deal with, and often one can get better sale prices as well. A few of us have been 'gifting' games through this system over the past year and it has worked out well.

Another side effect of summer - it's getting hot in here, so I'm going to wrap up this post. Time to get outside, maybe take the dog out for a swim.